Re: Nim Chimpsy (was "implicational and factive verbs"

Eric Christopherson wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 04:22:17AM -0500, czHANg Jon Chang wrote:
> > Dan Sulani wrote:
> > >     BTW, anyone ever heard of (or _remember_ ;-)  ) the original
> > > "Nim"?  A chimpanzee called "Nim Chimpsky" who was one of
> > > the original volunteers (er, I mean "subjects"  ;-)  ) in the research on
> > > teaching apes to use (human) language.
> [snip]
> >     ::big grin:: I do. Interesting case: the researcher didn't relate to Nim on a an
> >     emotional level & poor Nim - havin' the emotional level & needs of a 3 year
> >     old child - was totally bored & burned out by the repetitiveness of all the
> >     experiments. The much vaunted "Scientific Method" was too alienatin to Nim.
> >      In contrast is the research done by Patterson with Koko the Gorilla: much was
> >      accomplished (& evidently still is) 'cuz Patterson related on an emotional
> >      level with Koko.
> >
> >     Science does not need to be so "cold & distant" especially when dealin with
> >     interspecies communication(s).
>
> As much as I'd like to believe Koko can speak sign language (I've been
> enthralled with her story since I got the book _Koko's Kitten_ for
> Christmas years ago), the experiment has been harshly criticized for
> methodological flaws; according to the critics, Patterson et al. seem to
> project their wishful thinking in interpreting Koko's "signing."
I've read some of that criticism. The most generous critics concede that Koko was
able to master a large number of signs and use them consistently, but they
point out that she rarely used them spontaneously, and never developed what
could be called a syntax (instead, she would tend to string words together
more-or-less randomly: "Want Koko want play Koko tickle tickle play Koko play Koko", etc.).

The general impression I get from objective evaluations of these experiments is
that non-human primates can easily learn to associate arbitrary signs with
abstract concepts (no surprise, really; lots of animals have that ability).
However, they fail to intuit rules for systematically combining those signs
into
utterances--a necessary property of human language.

Matt.